Day One
by David Knight
Summary: The first day of work is always a challenge, even when its in your dreams.


_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters depicted in this story. They are owned by their respective companies._

**Day One  
****By David Knight**

The sound of files landing on a desk woke her up. She stared at the black haired, middle aged man wearing a white shirt and black tie, who was staring back at her as if she were trying his patience.

"Do I bore you, Officer Summers?" he asked.

She stared back, silently berating herself for falling asleep. "No, sir."

"You know what you are, Summers? Trouble, that's what you are," he said. "Had I been one of the academy trainers, I would have blocked you."

"And that would make you prejudiced, sir," said Summers, not bothering to hide her smirk.

"You were from a well-off family, and you choose to enlist because of some sob story," he said, taking a step towards her before she started moving. "And if you so much as get out of that chair, I'll throw you out right now."

"Oh, you'd love that, wouldn't you?" returned Summers. They had been trading barbs ever since she had been assigned to this police station.

"The only things I can't stand are your damn luck and how much of a free pass the brass has given you because of it," he ranted on, infuriating Summers, which she thought might have been the point. When he smirked, however, she felt slightly concerned. "Finally, though, it's starting to fade. You've gone through four different partners and been repeatedly cited for unnecessary roughness. The black marks are showing up, just like I expected."

"Is there a point to all of this?" Summers said, tired of the foreplay. "Or are you finally kicking me off the force?"

Silently, he continued to stare at her, perhaps hoping to see her squirm. She didn't. He shook his head. "I wish. They're putting you with another partner; female this time, and a nine year veteran. They think she can 'fix' you." He stared at her. "Personally, I can't wait to see you screw this one up so I can finally be rid of you. Now get out of my office."

Summers slowly got out of the chair and stared back at her superior officer. "At once, Captain Golan," she hissed. She walked out the door and slammed it as hard as she could.

Ignoring the stares that were attracted by the sound of the slamming door, she walked all the way to her locker in the squad room. Once she was alone, she punched the door several times, letting go of her anger before opening the door.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror inside. What she saw was a very angry young woman. Her blue eyes were burning with rage as she pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail, wanting to make herself look as intimidating as possible.

Intimidating. _A year ago, if someone told me I would want to be intimidating, I would have laughed at them_, she said to herself, looking deeper at herself in the mirror. She hated Golan, but it was true that she was very rough with what collars she had been a part of. But honestly, after what she had been through – and been put through - could they blame her?

_Maybe they've finally decided I'm more trouble than I'm worth_, she considered, given how certain Golan was that she was going to screw up.

Her rich parents practically threw her out of their lives when she chose to become a cop. She had been changing, transforming herself from the sweet, slender girl who looked like she belonged in a beauty pageant into the rage-filled Amazon she saw in the mirror. All of this work, all of these changes, came from the driving need to be the best, to be strong enough, fast enough to do this job, the way that he had. She became a cop because he had been one - and because she wanted to be the one to...

"Officer Summers?"

Summers turned around to face a female officer, roughly her height, who appeared to be a little older and had shoulder length, cinnamon brown hair and a slightly slimmer build than her own.

"Yes."

"I'm Officer Lockheart, your new partner," the older woman said, a friendly smile on her face.

"Okay, fine. Now that that's out of the way, can we get going?" asked Summers, impatiently.

Lockheart took her statement in stride. "Sure thing, rookie, but just so you know, I drive."

Summers grunted as she followed her 'partner' down the hallway and into the parking garage, out to where the parked squad cars were. She unlocked and opened the front passengers-side door. "Hop in!"

Summers did so while Lockheart walked around to the driver's side and entered the vehicle. "You're still driving your old car, taking the normal train, or a normal bus right?" said Lockheart, putting on her seatbelt.

"Train. I commute," muttered Summers, as she put on her seatbelt.

"You rookies always have a problem adjusting out of the academy," Lockheart said, amused as she turned the ignition. "Before you went into the academy, you looked like a normal person, but now, you're the big frightening lawmen and lawwomen who didn't wash out and went through all the hell the drill sergeants put you through. Now you're a physically intimidating presence." She took a moment to look back to Summers. "Too bad they never really try to help you."

"Huh?" said Summers. Lockheart moved the car out of the parking lot and into the street, going officially on patrol.

"Well, I can understand the drill sergeants wanting the male rookies to look like are built like Adonis or something when they graduate, which is stupid since strength doesn't necessarily give you what you need to do the job," she said, casually, before turning back to Lockheart. "You, on the other hand, you pushed yourself to get this way. You didn't take a step back, you took steps over the line, am I right?"

Summers rolled her eyes at her 'partner' behind her glasses, refusing to answer. "Like you're any better? Dress us up in the same uniform and not one civilian would tell the difference."

Lockheart laughed at that accusation. "Sweetie, I've been on the job for years now and gradually ended up getting my body to this point. You don't have that excuse. Eight months ago in your mind you were a tiny girl and now you're like an Amazon and you still don't think that's powerful enough."

"You read my file, nice," Summers retorted, annoyed with the introspection. "What else you know about me?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Summers asked, surprised that Lockheart had looked up her file but hadn't noticed that she had already been through four different partners in only two months.

"There's nothing else I need to know until you tell me," Lockheart explained. "The thing about being partners, is that partners need to trust each other to know what needs to be shared and what doesn't. All I wanted to know from your file was your medical history, to make sure you were physically fit to do the job."

"You mean, you wanted to make sure I wasn't taking something," Summers asked. "I would never make myself a slave to anything."

"What about payback?"

Summers looked at again at the veteran cop, who was still driving. "You're obviously angry at someone or something. Your use of your locker as a punching bag was proof of that."

"I don't want to talk about it," Summers said, closing herself off. She didn't want to talk at all. She just wanted to do this job. She just needed to...

"_Attention all units. There is a code N1 on Silver Lane. Be advised and proceed with caution."_

"That's right where we are," said Summers, reaching for the radio, but Lockheart grabbed it.

"You're still a rookie. You really think - "

The last thing either of them heard was an explosion.

* * *

"Jen, come on! Wake up!"

Jennifer 'Jen' Scotts blinked her eyes, trying to fight the pain and grogginess she felt as Trip shouted at her. _What a weird dream,_ she thought to herself before becoming aware of the situation. _We must have crash landed. No wonder my head feels like it's been through a blender._

"Jen, come on, let's go! The ship's going to explode!"

Her eyes opened wide, and she saw Trip hovering over her. He looked scared as hell. And if the whole ship really was about to blow up, she ought to be, too.

_Need to find the morphers,_ she said to herself, as she got her bearings and picked herself up off of the floor. She looked around the room and spotted the case under a pile of loose debris. Rushing to the case, she quickly grabbed the handle and yanked it out from the rubble and started moving to the exit, running as fast as she could.

She wasn't even looking to see if the others were following behind her. She knew that they would. They, too, were trained in the academy. They knew the job. They made it this far; they wouldn't go out like this.

Even as she kept moving across the sand, without looking back, she could already hear the whirling sound that signaled the beginnings of the explosion. An instant later, she felt its blast wave slam right into her, sending her head first into the sand and straight into unconsciousness.

* * *

"Summers! Summers, are you alright?"

Officer Summers groaned as she discovered that she was now sitting upside down. Or, rather, that the car had been overturned. She was still sitting exactly the way that she had been before.

"What happened?" she asked. Lockheart was ripping the bashed-in door away from her side. She stared a bit at her.

"Don't make a big deal out of it, Summers, it's not my first rollover and it won't be my last," the veteran replied with a smile. "Can you get your belt off?"

"Yeah, I..." she said unbuckling only to fall head and chest first into the roof of the car. She suppressed a cringe, not wanting to display any signs of pain to her 'partner', who was pulling her out of the car.

"Next time, wait for me to tell you when, so I can ease you down," Lockheart suggested.

Summers rolled her eyes at her, but her sarcastic remark died on her lips when she saw just what it was that had caused the vehicle to roll over. It was a vaguely human-shaped creature of pure fire, standing seven feet tall, burning anything it touched or stepped on.

"Yeah, that's the Stage One Nytemare," Lockheart said grimly. "From what I've already seen of it, the Nytemare's arms can act like flamethrowers. It can also launch orbs of fire that explode either on contact or on a time delay."

"Then why aren't there any other officers down here?" Summers asked.

"It's been projecting shadows of itself into other places," Lockheart answered. "I don't know if this is the Original or just another Shadow, but until the Original has been contained, we have to hunt down each one that appears."

"We?" asked Summers, coyly. "As in the department, or the two of us?"

"You want to have your chance to do the job?" said Lockheart. "Consider this on the job training."

"Thought you said I wasn't ready?" Summers smirked, grabbing her nightstick from her belt.

"I never said that. I only thought it," Lockheart reminded her, smirking back. "But since you're in such a rush to prove yourself, and since it's only a Stage One, some on the job training can't help but knock your ego back a few pegs."

"Oh, I can show you good I am," Summers returned, eager to show the 'Old Lady' a thing or two. After all, she was the best. She HAD to be the best.

Nightstick in hand, Summers ran towards the Nytemare. As she approached, it flailed its thin, elongated arms wildly, spraying flame everywhere. She ducked under them, rapidly closing the distance between her and the creature. Still running, she raised her nightstick and, with all the force she could bring to bear, smashed it through the creature's head and torso, cleaving it in half, and then stumbling to a stop in front of it as the two halves of the creature fell over onto the ground.

Her triumph was short-lived. The two halves of the creature quickly reformed themselves into smaller versions of the original creature, stood up, and then returned to their original size. Where there was once one Nytemare, there were now two. The creatures actually smiled at her as one of them reached for and grabbed her right arm. She felt her arm burn as the other creature extended its arm toward her throat. And then, the creature became encased in ice. So did the other one.

Turning around, Summers saw Lockheart with her gun in her hand. "Using brute force against Elemental types isn't a good idea, or did you just happen to forget that rule?" said Lockheart, adjusting the dial on her gun and firing again. Two white beams of light came out of the gun and shattered the Nytemares, leaving behind no trace of their existence.

Summers looked at her burned arm. The flesh was already healing. When a Nytemare was eliminated, any damage it inflicted on a living person's body usually faded away quickly.

"You're welcome," said Lockheart.

"Yeah, whatever," muttered Summers.

"You wouldn't have needed a save if you took a moment to think about what you were doing instead of losing your temper," said Lockheart.

Summers stopped and turned around, her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?" she hissed, her voice low as she started walking back to her.

"You're running on all four cylinders, you're flooring the gas, and you don't care about what happens to you as long as you get the result that you think you want," Lockheart said shaking her head. "Now I know why they put me with you: to keep you from getting yourself killed!"

She never saw the punch Summers threw at her.

"I am already sick of your attitude, Miss Know-It-All!" snapped Summers. "There's monsters out there to deal with, and you're just treating me like a baby! I don't need this!"

Without saying anything else, Summers started running, intent on finding the thing responsible for everything. Throw her out? She didn't need the force; she didn't need anyone! She'd get the job done on her own!

Behind her, she heard Lockheart's gun fire. _Was she trying to stun me?_ Summers turned around, and saw a frozen Nytemare, arms aimed and ready to spew fire in her direction. Once again, Lockheart had saved her. She stared at back at her, and Lockheart, instead of firing a second shot, lowered her gun and took off her sunglasses, allowing Summers to look at her directly in eyes. "Smash it," she said.

Summers looked at the Nytemare, which had been frozen with a look of unholy joy on its face. Screaming, she took her nightstick and started smashing the ice statue to pieces, then smashing the pieces over and over, again and again, until there was nothing left.

Eventually, she was bent over, breathing heavily as she attempted to get herself together, only to feel a comforting hand on her shoulder. She broke away from it, and looked back accusingly. "Why?"

"Why what?" Lockheart asked honestly.

"Why are you doing this?" Summers asked, unable to understand why her 'partner' was still trying to help her.

Lockheart simply responded by asking, "Because even if you are a pain in the ass with no sense of self-preservation, you're still my partner. That means I watch your back." She had a slight smirk on her face. "And that also means I pick up the rear as well, if that happens to be the only part of you that can be seen."

Summers felt something tickling the back of her throat, wondering if she was sick. Instead, it was a laugh. An actual laugh, instead of a bitter one. She could hardly believe it. After letting it escape her lips, she lowered her head. "I lost someone close to me. Someone irreplaceable. I became a cop because of it. The first person that was supposed to watch my back..."

She trailed off, feeling like she had already said more than she intended. "I don't need your life story right now," said Lockheart. "We can work on it as we go. I can see that you've been burned, but I, and probably a few of the other partners that you've driven away, am not a burner. I watch my partner's back. Always. That's something you're going to need if you want to get _it_."

Summers blinked. "Get _it_?"

"The Nytemare that took whomever you cared for," Lockheart said softly. "Doesn't take much to guess you lost him to a Nytemare." Seeing her fierce expression, Lockheart pressed on. "The problem is, you can't fight something like that on your own. You need people to back you up when things go wrong. If you don't, you're as good as dead."

She took a moment for that to sink into the rookie's head before saying, "Or, if you want, I could just let you run off to try your luck against a few more low level firebugs and wait until the last possible minute to step in and save your sorry butt?"

Summers laughed again at that comment. It wasn't an insult; it was a wake up call. She couldn't be that angry when she faced _it_. If she didn't keep a cool head,_ it _would eat her alive in an instant. One day, she was going to take care of that Nytemare, and, maybe, she wouldn't have to do it alone. Provided, of course, that Lockheart turned out to be someone she could learn to work with.

"Well, now that it seems you're in a better mood," Lockheart said, cheerfully, "how about we try this whole partner thing again? We need to go back to the station."

"By walking?" Summers asked.

"It's going to get dark soon," Lockheart responded. "Do you want to be out in the dark alone?"

Summers simply nodded, following the more experienced cop as, guns ready, they started to walk back the way they came. "You know, I suppose that our first day together could have gone a lot worse," she mused. "Right, partner?"

Lockheart's eyes widened slightly. "Did you just call me your partner? Are you admitting that there are some things that you might actually need help with?"

"Don't push it," Summers returned, sharing a smirk with her partner, backing each other up as they made their way to the station while keeping an eye out for any remaining Nytemares.

All in all, it was a hell of a day.

* * *

Jen woke up, spitting sand out of her mouth. "That's just gross," she muttered, picking herself up off the ground. Turning around, she saw the blast crater of the time ship in the distance. _Well, we're definitely stuck here, wherever and whenever that happens to be._

The dreams she was having felt a bit odd though. _Why would I dream myself looking like an Amazon in 21__st__ century police wear?_ she asked herself. She was a Time Agent; there was no need to dream herself playing cops and robbers. _And in red? Why am I in a red uniform? Red is Alex's color._

Still, all that aside, it had made some things clear. Like her insane her idea of going after Ransik herself was. If Alex couldn't beat him in a fair fight, how good were her own chances? Slim to none.

No matter how much she wanted to kill the criminal for what he had done, what he had taken from her, murder was wrong. It wasn't just wrong, it was against the Code. The Code that she, Alex, and every other person who wore this badge for all of the right reasons respected. Unlike Steelix.

She found it strange that she had dreamt of him at all, even if he had appeared as a seven-foot tall, fire-spewing monster. It was odd that, in the dream, he had tried to shoot her in the back; Steelix had never done that in real life. _Then again, betraying Time Force and all of the laws you swore to uphold just for the sake of personal glory could be considered the same thing,_ Jen reasoned.

It felt strange that such a dream would get it both right and wrong on so many points, but, in the end, she shrugged and chalked it up to what it was: a dream brought on by stress and continued bumps to her head. _I need to be more careful where I land,_ she mused.

Hearing a few groans, she realized that her actual partners were starting to wake up. Jen allowed herself to smile, knowing that things would be all right now. Once they put on the morphers and transformed, they would be able to take on Ransik and his gang. _You thought one Power Ranger was hard? Let's see how hard it is for you take on four of them!_

Jen started to make her way to her friends to help them up, but one thing about the dream still bothered her. She knew that the people and creatures she had seen in the dream were inspired by Logan, Alex, Ransik, and Steelix - but Lockheart didn't seem to have any counterpart in her waking life, and she played such an important role in the dream.

If Lockheart was going to become her partner, who was she?

* * *

"Attention, all passengers. We will be landing in LAX in about ten minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts."

Kimberly Ann Hart woke up upon hearing the pilot's announcement. Her long flight back home from Europe was almost over. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned. "Always the strangest dreams..."

On and off, ever since giving her power coin to Katherine so many years ago, she had had a lot of dreams. Dreams what of she thought could be and what would be. Needless to say, her life ever since she had retired from being the original Pink Ranger had not gone as planned.

She had made mistakes, mistakes she'd never forget, but also knew couldn't kick herself for them forever. Chief among them was having written that letter to break up with Tommy, leaving him for a guy that ended up cheating on her and breaking her heart. She could never bring herself to face Tommy, that small incident with Divatox notwithstanding.

Aside from that, she still kept in touch as best as she could with all of her friends, as well as keeping herself updated with what was new in the legacy of Rangers. It seemed like every year she had read in the papers about a new team popping up out of the woodwork. It was too bad that new bad guys always came out at the same time, but she guessed there had to be a balance.

_I just wish universal salvation didn't have to equal Zordon dying_, she said to herself. She had heard about it through Kat, who had been told by her own successor Cassie. She remembered crying for some time; he had been like a father to her. He gave her an opportunity of a lifetime, showed her a world she could barely have imagined and taught her so many things. The universe seemed just that much darker with his passing, even if now there was peace.

And yet, it was after getting the news of his passing she started having the dreams. Dreams of her being a police officer. She never could remember the exact details of the dreams, only general feelings. It was strange, but she guessed she might have been subconsciously missing part of her life as a Power Ranger. Dreaming that she was a cop and dealing with monsters was just a way for her mind to deal with that desire.

What seemed constant, though, were her partners, who constantly changed but were always women. And she was always acting like a mentor, much as Zordon had mentored her. As strange as it sounded, it felt comforting.

It was also a reason why she had taken up her new job, teaching gymnastics at Stanford University. She had done all that she could in actual competition. Winning the gold in PanGlobals had been a dream come true, and she had gone on to participate in several gymnastics competitions over the years, even winning a few of them.

Missing Sydney, however, was the turning point for her. One misstep cost her the chance to compete, but even if she had been there, she doubted they would have even made the bronze. The teams had been that good. Instead she took it as a sign for what it was: time to move on.

Despite not making the Olympic team, she had still built up a reputation over the years. She put out some feelers, trying to get onto a college gymnastics program's staff. Two months ago, Stanford University offered her a two year contract for an assistant coaching position.

Despite not having set foot back in the state in a little over five years, she couldn't help but feel as though she was coming back home, even though she didn't yet actually have a permanent home of her own yet, just a place the university had set up for her to live in. As she felt the plane touching the runway, Kimberly was still lost in thought. _We need to take hold of these moments as they come, because we can't undo the past,_ she mused. _We can only try to make a better future for ourselves._

**The End...or a Beginning?**

_Author's Notes: For the purpose of this story's universe, there's a shared dreamstate where all people who are asleep end up. Most people have normal dreams, and live them out in this reality and are not aware of it. However in this reality, nightmares actually take form, and can harm dreamers. The longer they remain, the more damage they can do to the dreamer. They are taken care of by the 'dream police' if you will._

_This is intended to stand as an experimental one shot but there is room for it to grow into a series of one shots, focusing on certain parts of Time Force that Jen was under stress and end up resolving said stress through the dreamstate, with Kimberly being a guiding influence, even if they wouldn't be aware of each other._


End file.
